fictionary… 8 megapixel artist… bloody awful poet.

Analog

I am analog.

I am a human seeking comfort in the recent world, and I have found no true comfort here. Only the chase for what I call “the perfect less than”. Those comforts here, for me, are hollow… or more accurately, holo, as in virtual, not actual. You see, I learned that I can’t take my comfort in perfect bits and bytes, a little from one source, a little more from another. I wasn’t built that way. I am analog in a disproportionately digital world.

I understand the concept of the holo… and the virtual satisfaction that comes with it. Virtual in that, while the interaction between two sources, the stimulus and the response, is genuine, it is also incomplete.

The idea of taking one satisfaction stimulus from one source, another from another source, and so on, is totally legitimate. Just the way masturbation is said to be equally fulfilling as sex with another human being, or frozen food from the microwave is the equivalent to eating food cooked fresh with care, and served with love, to someone hungry for more than lots of salt and artificial ingredients.

If it satisfies, it satisfies. It just no longer satisfies me.

Because I am analog.

It took a while to comprehend, but I’ve concluded that satisfying hunger from a microwave, or primal urges from a tube of jelly, isn’t for me. Not in the long term, anyway, and not by first choice in the short term, either. I don’t need the mix and match life of here and now gratification. I’ve finally lived just long enough to know that I need one signal, a single source, however garbled or corrupt, however incomplete.

And I’ve lived just long enough to know that I can embrace that kind of imperfection, because I am imperfect, too. Just as garbled and corrupt, a single source, fighting hard to find its place along a bandwidth of other corrupt sources. The equipment I was born with can’t adapt and assimilate to multiple inputs, however pure, however instant. I have tried.

I am wired, not chipped, and I need my comfort whole.

Because I am hopelessly analog.

I now accept that I am unable to receive the perfect bits and bytes that will not gather for my own imperfections to embrace. I can’t chase “the perfect less than”, the uncorrupted, here a piece, there another piece amalgam of virtual perfection to satisfy my imperfection, any more than I can separate my mind from my body, or my body from my soul. And I won’t pretend otherwise, anymore.

I copied the virtual-but-incomplete paragraph to paste here and say, “Yes, this!” Then I read the next paragraph and wanted to do the same to that one … and the one that followed, and the one that followed that. So instead I’ll say: “Yes, this!” to the whole (and to living analog).

Makes perfect sense to me, Bill. This resonates deeply. If we are expected to accept digital equivalents of organic. meaningful, emotionally charged analog experiences then are we turning ourselves day by day more into machines? It’s the perfect flaws in life that make things more attractive, less bland and stimulate the mind in exciting ways. I will embrace the tools of digital to add to my experiences in general but analog will always hold the greatest value worthy of dedicated pursuit to achieve a rich and fulfilling life.